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Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat (2018)/Tropes
Angrish: ** Dongwa: HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE! * Animesque: Due to being animated and largely produced/bankrolled by El TV Kadsre Animation, the guys responsible for Onmyoji: The Animated Series and Countryballs: The Animated Series, this trope is in full effect. The art style and character designs from the original Sagwa series were kept, but the animation is more like this trope. * Animation Bump: Due to the above trope, the animation is very different from the aforementioned original Sagwa series. * Ambiguously Christian: ** Aunt Chi-Chi from the original series' "Sister Act" returns as a recurring character, and she now has traces of this. She sometimes references the Bible, is shown to be upset at Baba Miao saying "Oh my God!" in "Baba Miao's Missing Hat!", and tells Nai-Nai that she's "a church kitten" in "The Acrocatic Problem!". It's then Averted/taken Up to Eleven in "A Snowy Mystery", where Mama Miao reveals she's indeed Christian. * Awesome Music: The theme song; especially since it involved notable El Kadsreian musicians Jaylin Rounds and Brendon Parker, had the vocals performed in part by 's Josh Kiszka, and fuses traditional Chinese music with swingin' jazz. * Bi the Way: ** Nai-Nai. She is Happily Married to the transgender Yeh-Yeh, but has blushed at some female characters. * Bilingual Bonus: Like the original series, Chinese is used; and sometimes the scrolls the Miao cats write get to be part of the mystery. * Bowdlerise: ** On HBO airings Stateside, this is common. Examples include: *** Any instance of the word "God" are changed to "Gosh" and any jokes about things like Yeh-Yeh's age are softened. *** In "The Missing Mooncakes", Yeh-Yeh tells the cats during his speech where he admits he's transgender that Baba Miao and his siblings were all born through artificial insemination. On the HBO airings, this was redubbed to just call it "a special process", however the CBC airings in Canada and the ETVKK airings in El Kadsre leave the line undubbed. *** In "Long Lost... Alley Cat?", Lik-Lik's line "I'm a cousin to the palace cats! My god!" was redubbed as "I'm a cousin to the palace cats! This is nuts!". The lipsync was also redone to match the redub. *** The scene in "The Scrolls Vanish!" where Dongwa moons the Sleeve Dogs was redone so he shakes his butt at them instead, which is actually even worse. *** "Baba Miao's Missing Hat!" had Dongwa's line "Sheegwa, you stupid, clueless, no-good moron!" redubbed to "Sheegwa, you don't know how to do this!". The same episode had Baba Miao's "Oh my God!" line redubbed as "Golly gosh!". Aunt Chi-Chi's look of disapproval towards Baba Miao using God's name in vain was left intact, though. *** Surprisingly, Mama Miao and Aunt Chi-Chi talking about Christianity in "A Snowy Mystery" was left intact, likely because they were also talking about Christmas traditions and mythos. However, The Foolish Magistrate's line "Damn it Tai-Tai!" was redubbed as "For the love of China, Tai-Tai!". The redub is particularly obvious as the lipsync barely matches and Hiro Kanagawa is trying very hard to fit the line to the sync by talking fast. *** Dongwa saying "What the hell?" in "Sheegwa's Missing Bandana!" was changed to "What the HFIL?", thus allowing both a Parental Bonus and reference to the Saban dub of Dragon Ball Z. Other instances of the word "Hell" in other episodes were changed to "Heck", though. * Catch-Phrase: ** Sagwa: "We have a case to solve!" and "Case closed!" ** Dongwa: "Well..." ** Fu-Fu: "Jai-jen, my friend!" and "FU-FU TO THE RESCUE!" * Crush Blush: ** Nai-Nai... good lord. * Darker and Edgier: Despite being rated TV-Y in the States, this is common. Examples include some mysteries which have the cats dodging lethal threats. * "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: ** does some vocals on the theme song in some versions. ** An ending theme example, the upcoming Season 3 ending theme S-A-G-W-A was co-written by creative director Presbitero De Leon. * Getting Crap Past the Radar: ** This show contains minor profanities such as "Stupid" and "Moron", and even characters telling each other to shut up. The words "Damn" and "Hell" are even uttered in a couple episodes. Characters also yell "Oh my God!" and some of the jokes are more aimed towards older kids than preschoolers. In the HBO airings, these are redubbed (see above) so they are softer (i.e. "Oh my God!" usually becomes either "Oh my Gosh!", "This is nuts!", or "Golly gosh!"; "Damn" is changed to "Darn"; "Hell" is changed to "Heck"; and characters tell each other to "be quiet") ** In "The Scrolls Vanish!", the Magistrate talks to Tai-Tai about "the problem with the beachgoers and their clothing choices". ** We can thank God the main plot of "Dress Mess!" only focuses on the educational/artistic bits of burlesque and not the parts men go crazy over! * Gratuitous Chinese: Once again, Chinese gets to be the language taught. * For the Evulz: ** The Sleeve Dogs' explanation for the whole mystery in "The Scrolls Vanish!" * Happily Married: ** Jun and the Reader of the Rules after the events of "The Wedding Problem" * Heel-Face Turn: ** The Sleeve Dogs and Alley Cats go through this. Wong Ton (the Jerk A** alley cat from "Dongwa's Best Friend" in the original series) gets to help in a couple cases. Even then, the Sleeve Dogs have their villain moments here and there. ** Tai-Tai is a lot more nicer in this series, but still has her mean moments. ** Dongwa is less of a jerk in this series; probably due to his jerkiness being explained as him being autistic which gives him frustration from impatience and being told things he's heard before. * Hollywood Autism: Dongwa is revealed to be autistic in this series, something the press surrounding the show's premiere made clear. * Long-Lost Relative: In "Long Lost... Alley Cat?", Lik-Lik is revealed to be Sagwa's stepcousin through Uncle Miao's marriage to Lik-Lik's late aunt Chun Hua. This also explains why Uncle Miao is a black cat; their love changed his fur color. * LGBT: ** Word of God confirmed Yeh-Yeh is trans, something that was hinted in "Where Did Lik-Lik's Scarf Go?" and eventually confirmed in canon in "The Missing Mooncakes". ** Henry Lee Christopher revealed in an interview that Nai-Nai is bisexual. Both were confirmed in canon in "Pain in the Mud!" * Never Mess with Granny: ** Nai-Nai, full stop. She occasionally saves the Miao kittens from disaster and shows off her skills in martial arts a lot. * Role Reprisal: ** Holly Gauthier-Frankel, Ellen David, Arthur Holden, Sonja Ball, Terrence Scammell, Michael Yarmush, Rick Jones, Hiro Kanagawa, and several other voice actors from the original series reprise their roles here. *** Holly, in addition to reprising the titular character, reprises Chung-Nee from "My Fair Kitty" starting in Season 2. ** In the Venezuelan Spanish dub; Maythe Guedes reprises her role as Dongwa from the original series; as does Juan Guzmán as Baba Miao and Gonzalo Fumero as Lik-Lik. This was an amazing feat since Gonzalo currently lives in Argentina, we can thank Power Network for getting Palmera Record in Buenos Aires to help Etcétera Group to bring Gonzalo back for this. ** The Cypriot Arabic dub of this brought back the entire cast from the original series, and not only had the same dubbing studio (Detriot Studios) but the same director (Konstantinos Athanasoulas). And the dub airs on Spacetoon, which normally uses the Syrian studio Venus Centre. * Something Completely Different: ** "Dress Mess!" is about Sagwa and Mama Miao putting on a burlesque show (yes, that's the plot), with Dongwa and Sheegwa solving a mystery without her knowledge about a missing dress she has. ** "Fight for Your Right" is about Dongwa and Lik-Lik solving a mystery in a Wuxia film-styled episode, complete with 2D motion capture sequences performed by martial artists. This is to the point where Sagwa recites this trope's name in her opening narration as a Monty Python reference. ** "Happy Birthday Nai-Nai!" focuses on the cast throwing a birthday party for Nai-Nai, with Sagwa's adopted dog cousin Cha-Siu solving a case for the cats in the background. * Transgender: ** Yeh-Yeh is female-to-male, and was originally named Yan Min. :::Lik-Lik: So your grandpa just admitted to having previously been a girl? * The Other Darrin: ** Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs and Christine Solomon (both of them actresses) rotate the role of Dongwa due to Oliver Grainger hitting puberty and retiring from voice acting. ** Jesse Vinet moved to Singapore and retired from voice acting; so the role of Sheegwa went to Jaeda Lily Miller, who has a similar voice to Jesse. ** Brian George takes over Yeh-Yeh from Neil Shee; Aliocha Schneider replaces Erik von Detten as Jet Jet; and Jodie Resther is now Hun Hun. ** Most of the Venezuelan Spanish actors were replaced for varying reasons, most of them being the actors moving overseas or retiring. ** Tai-Tai was replaced thrice. Khaira Ledeyo reprised the role for Season 1, but was replaced by Holly Gauthier-Frankel in Season 2. Steph Song will voice Tai-Tai in Season 3. * West Coast Team: ** Keiko, Kaiji, and Kazuyo; the calligrapher pixie bob cats of the Foolish Magistrate's Japanese cousin Hiro, aka the Smart Governor. They also solve mysteries like Sagwa and her pals do. * What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: ** The show has mild swear words and characters telling each other to shut up, plus talk of Christianity and LGBT issues, and even episodes where the mysteries involve dodging lethal threats. The show (albeit heavily edited, see way above) is rated TV-Y in the United States, and all of this was made by Sesame Workshop. * Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: ** The first season had an insanely tight production schedule, El TV Kadsre Animation and the co-producers had only 1 week to produce each of the 40 episodes of that season. Most of the scripts were drafted and then written in either 6 days or, in some cases, just 24 hours (as in: the first draft was written in the morning, the second draft was written at lunchtime, the storyboards were drawn in the afternoon, and the final script written late at night). Brock Baker and finished the script for "The Missing Mooncakes" using nothing but Google Docs and e-mail over one day and 24 hours. Thanks to the animation technology ETVKA uses, animation of the actual episodes usually took only 5 days. Voice recording and post-production also ended up taking 7 days prior to finishing up the episode. Category:Tropes Category:Sagwa on the Go!